“He says ditto to every word she utters. She can’t forget she came from the gutter, or near it; and, having power, is never at rest unless she is shewing it. She wants us all to be too afraid of her to dare to remember her origin. That, at least, is what many of us think. Anyhow, she has made the present position impossible and the officers are going to change it. It’s the only way to save the country.”
“How will they change it?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “By a revolution, Bergwyn; a peaceful one, if possible; but a revolution, certainly.”
“If possible? What does that mean?”
“The abdication of the King and Queen—if they’ll go.”
“And if they won’t go?”
“They’ll have to,” he replied, with another shrug. “To tell you the truth, there’s a section of the officers who urge violent means.”
“Assassination?” I recalled Elma’s prophecy.
“Yes, it comes to that,” he said, gloomily. “I’m dead against violent methods; but what they contend is that it is better half a score of lives should be lost than as many thousands by a civil war. Our hope—I mean the hope of the moderate men in the army—is that the King will see the uselessness of resisting the army and go.”
“You are convinced that the army will stand together?”